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Young girls are developing breasts early, and for some with no other physical signs of puberty.

Pre-pubescent Danish girls are developing breasts a year earlier than previously and seemingly not as a result of their own hormones, according to a new survey from the Rigshospitalet’s Department of Growth and Reproduction.

“We believe this is a result of environmental factors – hormone disrupting substances that have a strength to develop breasts despite the fact that the girls do not enter puberty. These substances are everywhere – in cosmetics, foodstuffs, paint – everywhere,” says Sr. Lise Aksglæde one of the authors of the report, naming parabenes and phthalates as two of the substances under suspicion.

More than 2,000 Copenhagen girls between five and a half and 20 years of age have taken part in the puberty survey. Half were surveyed in 1992 and 1993 and the rest between 2006 and 2008. Results have been published in the American scientific journal Pediatrics.

“The results are very worrying. A dark horse has appeared that affects Danish children and we don’t know what it is. We keep on measuring substances such as phthalates and parabenes but this cannot necessarily give us the answer as to whether these are the substances affecting them,” says Rigshospitalet’s Department of Growth and Reproduction Head Professor Anders Juul.

My 9 year old, 3rd grade neice now needs to wear a bra. She's also 5'1" and weighs about 105 lbs. My sister is alarmed because now that the weather is nice, the middle school boys are circling around the house to get a look at her, thinking she's older. The boys call her "Marsha Brady", because she looks like Marsha did back then.

I started wearing a bra in 5th grade, because all the other girls were doing so. I didn't need one until I was around 12, or 7th grade. My sister, who matured earlier than I, needed one in 5th grade. I didn't get my period until I was 14, my sister did at 12 (about 2 months after I did). We were in that age group in the late 70s.

One of my brother's 12 year olds has been getting her period for over a year. She just turned 12. The other twin seems to be maturing at the pace I did.

We all at work have noticed this trend with the foster kids we work with-girls are maturing younger. Children's clothing makers are going to have to bring back the junior high sizes, so that girls in that group won't have to wear junior clothing, which is too grown-up for them, style-wise.

I hit puberty, like a Mack truck hitting a brick wall, when I was 10/11. I grew seven inches that year, went through menarche, and breasts just "fell out of" my body one morning when I got up. Boom! There they were. Thank heaven I had skipped a grade early in my schooling; I fit in with other sixth graders to some extent, but I would have been a freak if I had still been in fifth.

"Today, [the American voter] chooses his rulers as he buys bootleg whiskey, never knowing precisely what he is getting, only certain that it is not what it pretends to be." - H.L. Mencken

Scandinavian women have always traditionally been "late bloomers". Even in this country, Scandi girls were usually behind the curve for this sort of thing. I was 2 months shy of 14 before anything stunningly pubertal happened to me. I wonder if it is all the hormones and other compounds (coupled with high calories) that is behind this.

It can't be good for girls. The longer you have all that estrogen running around your system, the more at risk you are for various ailments over a lifetime.

I wonder if it is all the hormones and other compounds (coupled with high calories) that is behind this.

I would say so. We live in Amish country and their girls don't mature as early as the 'English'. It's an accepted premise that this is caused by the lack of hormones in their food. As a result, my grand-daughters are fed Amish meat & milk exclusively, even though it's more expensive and we're not Amish.